G.R. No. L-26395. November 21, 1969
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, VS. MONICO O. CERVERA, DEFENDANT-APPELLEE.
CONCEPCION, C.J.:
Appeal from an order of dismissal of the Court of First Instance of
Antique upon the ground of double jeopardy.
On September 29, 1962,
Ambrosio Elequin filed,
with the Municipal Court of Sibalom, Antique, two
criminal complaints against Monico O. Cervera. In the
first complaint, Criminal Case No. 682, Cervera was
charged with grave oral defamation, later changed to slight defamation. It alleged:
“That on or about September 28, 1962, between 4:00 and 5:00
o’clock in the afternoon, while inside the restaurant in the poblacion of Sibalom, Antique,
Philippines, * * * the said accused MONICO O. CERVERA did then and there,
willfully, unlawfully and feloniously, utter to the undersigned the following
words in the Visayan dialect, to wit:
” ‘Baboy ikaw;
wala huya; Hijodepota ikaw; Bastos, patay huya
mabato ikaw? Sabat; Caron badilon ta; Palotawon
co caron ikaw sa suba, and other words of
similar import, which when translated into English, means: ‘You are pig; Shameless; Son of a Bastard
(whore); Shameless (rough); you will fight?
Answer. I will shoot you and
throw your body into the river,’ and words of similar import.”
Charging Cervera with grave threats, it
was alleged in the second complaint, Criminal Case No. 683:
“That on or about September 28, 1962, between 4:00 and 5:00
o’clock in the afternoon, while the undersigned was inside the restaurant of
Juana de los Santos, situated in the vicinity of the
public market, within the Poblacion of Sibalom, Antique, * * * the said accused MONICO O. CERVERA,
did then and there, willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously, threaten to kill
the undersigned and throw his body into the river, when he uttered the
following words, as follows, to wit:
” ‘Caron badilon ta;
Patyon ta; Caron palotawon co caron ikaw sa suba;
Pa lukpon co ang olo mo; Sabat cay badilon to ikaw,’ and words of similar
import, and which when translated into English reads as follows: ‘I will shoot you; I will kill you; I will
throw your body into the river; I will blast your head; Answer and I will shoot
you,’ and other words of similar import.”
On April 15, 1963, the defendant filed a motion to quash the
complaint in Criminal Case No. 683, for grave threats, upon the ground: (1) that the charge therein should have been
for light threats, the acts imputed to him having been allegedly committed in
the heat of anger; and (2) that he would be placed twice in jeopardy of
punishment for the same act. The motion
was denied, on May 9, 1963.
The two cases were jointly tried.
After the introduction of the evidence for the prosecution, on January 27, 1964, the defendant moved
to dismiss both cases, upon the ground of insufficiency of the evidence to
establish his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
The complainant objected to the motion, which was denied on February 28, 1964. Thereafter, the municipal court proceeded
with the trial, up to its conclusion.
On April 15, 1964,
said court rendered judgment in the two cases, acquitting the defendant in
Criminal Case No. 682, for slight oral defamation, but finding him guilty of
light threats in Criminal Case No. 683 and sentencing him to pay a fine of
P100.00, with subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency.
The defendant appealed from the judgment in Criminal Case No. 683
to the Court of First Instance of Antique, in which the Provincial Fiscal
charged the defendant with light threats, under an information (Criminal Case
No. 428) alleging:
“That on or about the 28th day of September, 1962, in the
municipality of Sibalom, province of Antique,
Republic of the Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable
Court, the above-named accused, in the presence of several persons, did then
and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously threaten Ambrosio
Elequin with a blunt instrument (caborata)
and at the same time uttering the following words, to wit: ‘Caron badilon ta; Patyon ta;
Caron palotawon co caron ikaw sa suba; Pa lukpon
co ang olo mo; Sabat cay badilon to ikaw.’ which translated into English is as follows: (I will shoot you; I will kill you; I will
throw your body into the river; I will blast your head; Answer so that I will
shoot you), and other words of similar import.”
The defendant moved to quash the information, upon the ground
that his acquittal in Criminal Case No. 682 of the municipal court for slight
oral defamation was a bar to his prosecution for light threats, both the oral
defamation and the light threats having been allegedly committed on one and the
same occasion. The prosecution objected
thereto alleging that, although made on a single occasion, the utterances
conveyed distinct implications and meanings falling under two separate
provisions of the Revised Penal Code, one for oral defamation, and the other
for threats. On December 3, 1965, the court of first instance
denied the motion to quash, holding that the offense of oral defamation, of
which the defendant had been acquitted, was not necessarily included in the
offense of light threats.
The defendant filed a motion for reconsideration. Relying principally upon People vs. Yebra,1 on February 28, 1966, the court of first instance
reconsidered its order of December 3, 1965 and dismissed the information, upon
the theory that, having been committed on the same occasion, the offense of
oral defamation was necessarily included in that of light threats, and that, in
view of defendant’s acquittal in the case for oral defamation, his prosecution
for the offense of light threats would place him in double jeopardy. The prosecution sought a reconsideration,
which said court of first instance denied on April 22, 1966.
Hence, this appeal by the prosecution.
Appellant maintains that People vs. Yebra,2 is not in
point, because in that case only one information was filed, whereas, in the
present case, there have been two separate criminal complaints, one for oral
defamation and another for light threats.
In the Yebra case, the trial court dismissed
the information, upon the ground that it charged two offenses, namely libel and
threats, committed and made in a letter written and sent by the defendant. In reversing the order of dismissal, this
Court held that the libelous remarks contained in said letter were merely
preparatory acts culminating in the final threat, which was the offense
committed by the defendant.
In the case at bar, the court of first instance seemed to believe
that defendant’s acquittal in criminal case No. 682 of the municipal court, for
slight defamation, necessarily implied his acquittal for the threatening
remarks alleged in the complaint in that case, for, apart from setting forth
the insults heaped upon the complainant, it was averred therein that the
accused had added: “You will
fight? (Will you fight?) Answer. I will shoot you and throw your body into the
river,” and “words of similar import.’ The conclusion thus reached by
the court of first instance is untenable.
To begin with, a remark that is literally insulting may be made
without the slightest intention of casting any aspersion upon the person to
whom it is addressed or even as an expression of affection for him or of joy
upon seeing him. So, too, a person may
say that he will kill another and throw his body into the river, for the
purpose, not of intimidating, but of insulting him, as a manifestation of the former’s contempt for him and to express the feeling that
the former considers the latter so worthless and insignificant, as well as so
lacking in manly qualities, that the former could do whatever he wanted to with
the latter, as if he were a chicken
or a rat. Thus, in the Yebra case, it was held that the offensive’ remarks made by
the accused did not constitute defamation, the remarks being merely an incident
preliminary to the threat made by him, in the heat of anger.
We note that – unlike the complaint in case No. 683 of the
municipal court, in which it is alleged that the defendant had threatened to
kill the complainant – in case No. 682 of the same court, the complaint did
not allege that the remarks above-quoted were uttered with the
intention of intimidating the complainant.
Moreover, in choosing to designate the offense therein charged as grave
oral defamation, and, later, as slight oral defamation, the complainant
impliedly indicated therein that said remarks had not been made for the purpose
of intimidating him. Indeed, the words
“you will fight? (Will you fight?)
Answer, ” allegedly uttered by the defendant, before saying “I will
shoot you and throw your body into the river,” suggested that he had
doubts about the courage of the complainant, not only to fight, but, even to
answer him back. The defendant intimated
thereby that complainant was afraid of him.
Thus, the complaint in case No. 682, when considered in its entirety,
strongly suggests the intention of asserting that the acts therein set forth
were performed for no other purpose than to insult the
complainant. We are not prepared, therefore,
to hold that the crime of light threat was included in the charge contained in
said complaint.
Secondly, we should bear in mind that the two (2) cases were
heard and decided, by the municipal court, at the same time. Let us suppose that the complaint in said case
No. 682 was exactly identical to that filed in case No. 683 of the municipal
court, and that, in deciding both, the same declared that, since the two (2)
cases involved one and the same offense, it was not proper to twice punish the
accused therefor, and that, accordingly, he should be
and was convicted in one case only, and acquitted in the other. In such event, it would be clear that said
judgment of conviction would not violate the constitutional injunction against
double jeopardy of punishment for the same offense.
No such infringement has similarly taken place in the case at
bar. Besides, a breach of the
fundamental law should not be assumed.
On the contrary, the municipal judge is presumed to have done his duty
and complied with the law, unless and until the contrary is clearly
established, and the defendant has not done so.
Indeed, the decision of the municipal court, in said case No. 682, does
not appear in the record of the present case.
Neither does the latter show that the judgment of acquittal in case No.
682 was based either upon failure to prove the facts alleged in the complaint
or upon proof that the allegations thereof are not true. What is more, the denial of the motion to
quash filed by the defendant, in the municipal court, upon the conclusion of
the evidence for the prosecution, premised upon the alleged insufficiency of
the evidence to establish his guilt beyond reasonable doubt, and his conviction
in case No. 683 of said court indicate the exact opposite and that his
acquittal in case No. 682 was due merely to the belief that said facts constituted the crime of light threat,
not slight defamation. Under these
circumstances, the court of first instance erred in reconsidering its order of December 3, 1965 and in dismissing
the information in the present case.
WHEREFORE, the order appealed from should be, as leis
hereby set aside, and the case at bar remanded to the Court of First Instance
of Antique for further proceedings, in conformity with this decision, without
special pronouncement as to costs.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal, Sanchez, Castro, Fernando, and Teehankee, JJ., concur.
Zaldivar and Barredo, JJ., did not take part.
1 L-14348, September 30, 1960.
2
Supra.